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Heritage Internet Technologies was a web design and web hosting company located in Provo, Utah and founded in 2001 which specialized in creating custom websites for small and medium-sized businesses. According to Inc.com's Inc. 5000, in 2007 it was the fastest growing company in Utah, the 3rd fastest growing IT company in the United States, and the 22nd fastest growing company overall.〔 The company was ranked 392nd for 2008 in the Inc. 500 list, and 49th in the list of top 100 IT companies.〔 The company started with a small investment from the then-larger Heritage Group, which became entirely focused on the new web design firm. Former CEO Brad Stone〔The CEO of Heritage Internet Technologies is not the same person as Senior Technology Leader Brad Stone with Information Technology at Brigham Young University.〕 told the ''Deseret Morning News'' that due to the growth of his firm and others near Provo (which is also home to a large Novell facility) that the company had to begin hiring telecommuting programmers in order to keep up with demand. The company was featured in a segment of the infomercial scam ''The Economic Report'', which was hosted by sports anchor Greg Gumbel. The company closed for business on March 8, 2011 while leaving work on hundreds of customer websites uncompleted and owing millions to customers, vendors, employees, and the Internal Revenue Service. ==History== Heritage Internet Technologies was started as Heritage Web Solutions in 2001 by David Aitken with US $1000, startup money given to him by the owners of a mortgage refinancing company where Aitken was a manager.〔 By 2005, the startup company had grown from one part-time employee to 65 employees, and the parent company had folded in favor of the new company.〔 The company had over 700 employees (including contract workers)〔 and was planning to expand into the United Kingdom by the end of 2008.〔 ''The Economic Report'', a syndicated business and economy television program hosted by Greg Gumbel, announced in October 2008 that it would be featuring Heritage in an upcoming episode. Later investigations found ''The Economic Report'' to be an infomercial scam which charged $20,000-$30,000 for a five-minute segment. Heritage was the subject of a May 2010 investigative report by KSL, the NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah. The report featured four different dissatisfied customers from outside Utah, an interview with Mark Strong (one of the owners), and a representative of the Utah chapter of the Better Business Bureau. The report indicated that the terms of service used by the company were very long and that most customers never read them. The company shut down on March 8, 2011 without any warning to its customers or employees.〔 Work on hundreds of customer websites was left uncompleted and customers were told via a recorded message〔 to contact Fibernet, one of the hosting companies that Heritage used to resell hosting.〔 The company owes over $17.1 million to the Internal Revenue Service and is being investigated for fraud by the Utah County Attorney's office.〔 They owe a substantial amount of money to their former employees who say that they either haven't gotten paid, or they've gotten paychecks that bounced,〔()〕 and at least 58 claims for at least $245,039 have been made for back wages and other payments. A former contract employee stated that she received numerous complaints from customers that Heritage had charged them for services they had not ordered.〔 Heritage issued a press release through its attorney on March 14, 2011 in which it stated it was unable to continue and would be dissolving after attempting to meet all of its obligations.〔 KSL-TV found during their investigation aired March 14 that several former employees of Heritage opened a new company named ISO Webworks on March 8, the same day Heritage closed their doors. They quoted Heritage's former marketing director as stating that the site for the new company was "(the ) same, even the code is the same. Nothing's been changed." Both Heritage's attorney and ISO Webworks deny any direct connection between the two companies.〔 In August 2012, Aitken started another web design company, Your Design Guys, in Pleasant Grove, Utah. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Heritage Internet Technologies」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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